


Principessa, Imperatrice

by cygnes



Category: Batman (Comics), Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8561479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: Fish watches Sofia grow up. Her plans start to shift.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/149584840225/fish-mooneysofia-falcone-or-sofia-falconethe) on my tumblr, for [Skazka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/pseuds/skazka)'s prompt "fish mooney/sofia falcone (or sofia falcone/the person of your choice), weird organized crime dating."
> 
> I held off on putting this on AO3 initially because I was seriously considering expanding the idea and writing more in an AU where the first season of _Gotham_ involved the shenanigans and machinations of the college-age Falcone siblings. Now that the show has chosen to include only the most boring Falcone kid (sorry, Mario), I've kind of gotten less invested in the possibilities offered by that AU. 
> 
> Also, fair warning: most of what I know about Italian-American organized crime is from the first two _Godfather_ movies.

Fish meets Sofia for the first time when Sofia is twelve. Sofia and Alberto and Mario are sitting quietly in the formal sitting room, sipping glasses of ginger ale while the adults drink wine. Mario fidgets. Alberto sneaks curious glances at the guests. Sofia watches her soda go flat and holds the glass in both hands as it turns clammy. 

Fish’s only real impression of her then is a cloud of frizzy auburn hair and bored, heavy-lidded eyes. The children don’t eat with the adults. Sofia and Alberto and Mario politely take their leave when the adults go in for dinner: seen and not heard. And then not even seen. 

The thing about old-school Italian families is that they treat you like you really are family right up until they don’t, at which point you’re generally dead. There are traditions there. The Roman (no, _Carmine_ ) firmly believes that the old ways are best, up to a certain point. He is less concerned about surface gloss when it comes to alliances. He has contacts in Little Odessa and in the Irish mob. He considers Fish a friend. They discuss problems frankly.

But in no world would he put Fish at his right hand, call her consigliere. She can use his name, but she can’t act on his behalf. There are some rungs on the ladder she’ll never get to climb. 

By the time she sees Sofia again, a year and a half later, Sofia is almost as tall as Fish. Sofia is confirmed as Sofia Margherita Falcone on a warm day in April. She walks the aisle of the cathedral dressed in imported lace. From a distance, she might be a bride rather than a girl of almost-fourteen. Fish is invited because it’s a family occasion. For now, she is family.

“The Margherita is for Rita of Cascia,” Sofia explains at the reception afterward with a secret smile. “Do you know who she is?”

“I’m not religious,” Fish says. She’s not even Catholic, but she doesn’t go that far.

“Patron saint of the impossible,” Sofia says. 

“Nothing is impossible for a Falcone,” Fish says. Sofia smiles again, sharper. Today, for the first time, she is allowed to drink wine for more than communion. Her lips are stained red but her dress stays very white.

“Exactly,” Sofia says. 

Alberto is smart, but lacks the capacity for emotional investment that an extended family of thieves and murderers really requires. Mario is headstrong and sure of himself and lacks good sense. Sofia holds grudges in a way her father doesn’t. None of them is truly ideal. If Sofia had been born a boy, things might be different. But she wasn’t. Succession is anyone’s game, which makes the Falcone children all safer. There’s no clear target. 

At sixteen, Sofia is as tall as her father and still growing. She stays through family dinners, even when they discuss business. Her mother has gone back to Italy. Something about ill health or religious devotion. What it means in practice is that Carmine is a single father. It means that no one but him will tell Sofia what she can and cannot (must and must not) do. 

At sixteen, Sofia is seated at her father’s right hand while her brothers have to eavesdrop from the hallway. At sixteen, Sofia glances sidelong at Fish. Her heavy-lidded eyes are not bored now. 

(When Sofia is sixteen, Fish starts to wonder whether she should be thinking of Sofia as an adversary or a spoil of war. Maybe there’s no way to separate the two.)

Alberto and Sofia graduate from high school the same year, even though Sofia is several years older. Alberto is smart. Alberto is ambitious. Alberto wants to leave Gotham, so he gets a scholarship to Oxford. Sofia has her priorities in order. She goes to Gotham University. She stays. Fish starts seeing more of her. This is interesting, but inconvenient. When Sofia is nineteen, the foundations of their shared world begin to crumble. Fish isn’t entirely responsible, but she’s not innocent, either. She’s had those plans ready and waiting for a long time.

“Rita of Cascia tried to talk her family out of perpetuating a cycle of revenge,” Fish says. She’s not Catholic, but she does her research. 

“I picked her as a reminder of what not to be,” Sofia says. “Yielding, forgiving, putting ideals before reality. Like someone else I knew. My mother was talking about taking orders even then. She was too weak for Gotham. But I have my roots here. I know who I am and who my people are.” Sofia isn’t old enough to drink but she has migrated from red wine to B&B. There aren’t many bars in this city that would refuse to serve her.

“Your father never talked much about your mother after she left,” Fish says. It’s true. And it’s the reason she’s training up Liza to be the spitting image of Carmine’s sainted mother instead of his too-saintly wife. 

“What is there to say?” Sofia says. She towers over Fish but does not use her height to intimidate. She is stately rather than hulking. “My father loves you and trusts you. He told you what he thought was important.”

“What about you?” Fish says. “Do you… trust me?” 

Her words ask one thing. Her tone asks another.

“I trust you about as far as I can throw you,” Sofia says. 

“That’s a fair amount of trust, then,” Fish says, and Sofia laughs a little. Softly, in the back of her throat. “But why throw me when we can lean on each other?”

“It’s one thing to offer a shoulder. It’s another to carry someone.” Sofia stares into her drink, moody and young. Fish almost feels bad for her. (Almost.) “It doesn’t matter what I think of you. I’m not my father.”

“No,” Fish agrees. “You’re not your father.” Sofia is taller than her father now, with The Roman’s roman nose. She is older than her mother was when she got married. She’s balanced near the top of a ladder that Fish has long since given up trying to climb. “But you are your father’s daughter.”

The Roman Empire is falling. It doesn’t mean Sofia will. 

Fish has contingency plans to make.


End file.
